Update for this thread. We're way into the 900 series of GTX (Maxwell series of GPUs) graphics cards life span but even with new cards scheduled to appear from both AMD and Nvidia in the next few months, they're still great cards. For you budget gamers, there's even a sweet little card for you and still able to play nearly all games in medium/High settings in 1080p. The 900 series GPUs have Nvidia's new Anti-Aliasing called MFAA and include DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution). DSR is a method of downsampling, which is basically rendering a game at a higher resolution than your monitor/TVs native resolution. This creates an image that is much more clearer and crisp than traditional AA methods that we're all used to. As GPUs get much more powerful, I would not be surprised if DSR eventually phases out all other AA.

Budget

GTX 750Ti 2GB - $149

Although the 700 series is all based on the Kepler architecture, Nvidia decided to release their first Maxwell card as the 750 Ti.

This little card has been proven to handle many of the latest games at 1080p. They may not run at Ultra settings or even at High at 60 fps, but they still can rock nearly all games at Medium/High settings with rock solid 30fps performance. When paired with a decent CPU (eg. Intel Core i3 and up), they basically match, and at times exceed, the latest consoles in visual fidelity. All for the low price of $149. Oh and this card requires so little power, it doesn't even need a dedicated cable from the Power Supply like most high end cards. It draws all of its power straight from the motherboard. So there's a very good chance you don't even need to upgrade your PSU if you have one in the 400/500w range. There is one version, from Zotac, that does require a 6-pin connector but that's because it's overclocked by them, so it requires a little more power than all the other versions from other vendors

The lower end of the 900 series but by no means a slouch. This card can do 1080p gaming and, as shown by Grindspine below, it can even go beyond on some games. There are two variations of this card. There's the 2GB version and the 4GB version. The 2GB version is just fine and plenty for 1080p gaming but if you plan to play with higher resolutions, it's best to get the 4GB. Although, if that's the route you want to go with, it would be more advisable to go with any of the higher cards like the 970 or 980.

This card is what is considered the "sweet spot" in terms of price for performance ratio. This card is basically as powerful as the original GTX Titan that cost $999 back in February of 2013, except for the low price of $349. This card pretty much handles all games with ease at 1080p/60fps at Ultra settings. It can even handle gaming at 2560x1440 with a lot of games. You might have to turn down a few settings, like Anti-Aliasing, but the graphics still look great. You can't really go wrong with this card.

There's a slight caveat to this card's performance though. It has been revealed that this card can take a hit in performance when a game tries to access more than 3.5 GBs of memory. The reason for this is because the last .5 GBs of memory are on a separate controller that runs slower than the first 3.5 GBs. Despite this though, the card still runs great and there's a very, very low chance of hitting those last .5 GBs of memory. Usually it only gets hit when you're attempting to hit 4k resolutions or some other type of extreme graphical fidelity.

There might be some who would disagree with this being considered high end, I would still place it there since this card sits at $550. Which I would argue is quite a bit for the average gamer. Not to mention this card matches the GTX Titan Black which also launched at $999 a year after the original Titan. Still though, whether it's considered High End or Mid Range, it's still a beast of a card and will easily last someone through the current gen of games. Really, there's not much more to say about this card other than you will max out nearly all games at 1080p and beyond. This GPU also does not have the memory split up the same way as the 970.

The highest of the High End. This card is for gamers who have the money to spend and want the best of the best right now. With the most powerful GPU combined with a whopping 12GB of memory, there's really no game that will give you any trouble right now and even into the next few years. 2560x1440 is no problem at all, although 4K gaming might still be a little much. Just like it's Titan predecessors, this GPU is priced at $999.

Nvidia just released the GTX 700 series. These are the top of line cards at the moment for Nvidia. Only behind the beast, AKA, GTX Titan. So I'm putting some info about these cards in this thread for anyone who needs a quick reference. Enjoy!

The GTX 600 series is still around, but the 700 series is ramping up and you get better performance for a cheaper price than the 600 series. I'm sure there will be a few more models to be released. I will add them as soon as they are. But if anyone wants info on the 600 series, or any others in the Nvidia line, ask away.

I also added the TITAN since that is what the GTX 780 is based off of. It's still the single fastest GPU out right now.

My 560Ti is looking pretty weak and that one is only 2 generations old. I think I might end up splurging for the 780, but the AMD 7970 is looking pretty tempting too. Especially with all the free games it comes with.

Geforce GTX 960 was released this last Tuesday. I ordered mine on Tuesday night for $220 shipped. I got the EVGA Superclocked ACX (Advanced Cooling Extreme) version with 2 GB video memory.

I was previously running a GTX 460 Superclocked with 768 mb of RAM. It was a decent card and still able to handle most of my games. Newer games off Steam like Natural Selection and Orion would not run due to having less than 1 GB of video mem. I also could not run the Skyrim high res texture pack. I could run Crysis 2 on high settings at 1280 x 780 or so. The single fan was reasonably quiet.

This new GTX has a lower memory bandwidth (only 128 bit vs 192 bit for the other card), however, Nvidia has touted that the efficiency of the Maxwell chip makes up for the lower bandwidth. I cannot disagree with that sentiment.

The 960 optimized all of my games through the GeForce Experience program and is running all of my games at 1920x1080 or greater. This is where it gets weird. I have a 1920x1080 monitor, but some games, like Skyrim and DOTA, will actually render at 2500x1700, then scale down to 1920x1080 to try to capture the detail of an even higher resolution monitor. This Dynamic Super Resolution worked beautifully on Skyrim. Everything looked crisp with enough haze on distant objects to give depth to the field of view. I did experience one frame rate drop when approaching a waterfall, but that was only after four hours of running Skyrim at 1.5x my native resolution with everything maxed on the HD texture pack.

The card looks clean and fit easily in my mATX mid-sized TX-381 case after moving some SATA cables out of the way. I would say that the dual fans cool well, but at this point, I do not think they have even had to spin up. This version of the EVGA GTX 960 has a small switch to operate in standard BIOS, which will only spin up the fans over 60* C or so, or performance BIOS, which keeps the fans on for extreme cooling. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, Crysis 2, nor Skyrim even got the card hot enough to necessitate the fans. The triple-heatpipe heatsink seems to be cooling well enough with the air from my 120 mm intake fan blowing across it without needing its own two fans!

I have only had the card for a day, but it has already exceeded my expectations.

Wow! That thing looks like it could hover. I have never gamed on my rig, so I have never been interested in that kind of power.

I know I've hinted at it to you on another thread but really, if you're not gaming on a pc you're missing a decent chunk of the best the gaming industry has to offer. I've got about 80 hours in divinity original sin and have barely scratched the surface, and Wasteland 2 looks like a worthy successor to the original, both are pc only, and from what conversations we've had on here both are probably something you'd dig. Those are just two of the newer offerings that pay homage to games of old but have a new freshness that make them relevant to more than just those of us who have been a gamer during every iteration of console / computer imaginable 's hay day.

There's a million other titles out that'll at least warrant further consideration to building a computer that pulls as much wattage as your belt sander. There's also a feeling of pride when you walk into the computer department of best buy and one of the sales guys says something like "check out or latest and greatest" and you'd built better a year and a half ago.

It's not even as expensive anymore. spend money or ram, mother board, and high rpm / ssd hard drives you won't have to break the bank on the latest video card or the processor with the fastest clock speed. even the slower 8 core amds or the i7's are fantastic when all the typical bottle necks aren't a factor.

PC also has some of the most retro inspired titles than any other platform. So many indie developers that pay homage to the games of yesteryear that you'll lose count. It should be strongly considered for gaming.

So I bit the bullet and pulled trigger on an Asus GTX 970. I had some gift card money left over from Christmas and with free copies of both the Witcher 3 and Batman Arkham Knight, I just couldn't pass it up.

Plus, I still have a sandy bridge core i5. So anything more than a 970 and I'll probably start seeing bottlenecks.

I've been finding it harder and harder to justify paying 300 - 400 for a video card when I'm probably just going to do it again next year, so I've been pretty cheap the last five years or so. Unfortunately my card is now old enough to where anything as demanding as the second witcher has to be run on pretty low settings. Still the vast majority of what I like to play runs flawlessly cranked but probably by the summer steam sale i'll be buying at least a video card. I'd like to get something that'll drive 6 monitors so I can eventually buy another three, again bad for me because the NVidia's in the 300 price range only support four, the amd cards in the mid 300's can support 6 but I'm tired of the ati drive issues I seem to always run across...

Yeah, I hear ya. I personally don't mind upgrading because I do genuinely love computers, so I like to upgrade whenever I have the funds. I save up for a few months though. I wish I was like some of my friends who can just buy parts on a whim.

With multi monitor support, if your plan is to play games, there's really no other way than to run multiple GPUs. No single card right now will deliver the performance you're looking for. Even the flagships.

My personal goal is to run games in 4K but that's a goal I know won't reach until maybe another 2 or 3 years.

I am still using a GTX960, EVGA FTW version with dual fans. It games solidly at 1080 with pretty much 60 fps on most games with high to ultra settings. Very rarely do I see a bit of frame rate drop, but it is rare and momentary.

Oh man. Can't believe this was 4 years ago. So much has happened since. AMD is starting to catch up to Nvidia in both CPU and GPU parts. I'm rocking a GTX 970 from two years ago. I don't plan to make the leap past 1080 any time soon.

My interest now is more toward the G-sync monitor. At 60 FPS I still get occasional screen tear (Doom comes to mind). With V-sync, I get stutter. G-sync is such a great idea; having the monitor start the frame when the graphics card does just makes sense!

The AOC G-synch monitor is occasionally shy of $400. It seems that it would be a bigger graphical improvement at 1080 than upgrading my card at this point.

I compromised and hit a Best Buy sale and got a computer with an I7 and 1070GTX for just about what I could buy a 1070 from newegg. I'm super impressed for a mid 2016 video card. I've not got anything super graphics intensive but VR works really well and I've not noticed a hiccup in any game I've thrown at it so far. I'm sure i'll be replacing it sometime in the future but for now it's a great card.

I am still using a GTX960, EVGA FTW version with dual fans. It games solidly at 1080 with pretty much 60 fps on most games with high to ultra settings. Very rarely do I see a bit of frame rate drop, but it is rare and momentary.

I have not updated my computer in a while. I still get solid frames, just occasional screen tear. Still eying a G-sync monitor, just haven't pulled the trigger on it!